Seismotectonics of the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Field, Baja California, Mexico.

We studied the background seismic activity in the Cerro Prieto geothermal field (CPGF) using a network of 21 digital stations. Earthquakes are located below the exploitation area of the CPGF, between 3 and 12 km depth, within the basement. Earthquakes follow roughly a N30°E trend perpendicular to the Cerro Prieto fault. This activity is located on a horst-like structure below the geothermal field and coincides with the zone of maximum subsidence in the CPGF. Two earthquake swarms occurred along the SE-NW strike of the Cerro Prieto fault and in the neighborhood of the Cerro Prieto volcano. Magnitudes range from -0.3 to 2.5. A Vp/Vs=1.91 ratio of the activity below the volcano suggests a water-saturated medium and/or a partial-melt medium. We calculated 76 focal mechanisms of individual events. On June 1 and September 10, 1999, two earthquakes of Mw 5.2 and 5.3 occurred in the basement at depths of 7.4 and 3.8 km below the CPGF. Maximum peak accelerations above the hypocenter ranged from 128.0 to 432.0 cm/s². Waveform modeling results in a fault geometries given by strike=236°, dip=60°, rake=-58° (normal) and strike=10°, dip=90°, rake=159° (right lateral strike-slip) for the June and September events. Observed triangular source time function of 0.7 seconds and a double source with a total duration of 1.9 seconds for the June and September events were used to calculate the synthetics seismograms. Static stress drops and seismic moments for the June and September events are: Δ\sigma=82.5 MPa (825 bars), Mo= 7.65x10¹⁶ Nm (7.65x10²³ dyne-cm) and Δ\sigma=31.3 MPa (313 bars) and Mo=1.27x10¹⁷ Nm (1.27x10²⁴ dyne-cm). These stress drops are typical of continental events rather than stress drops of events originated in spreading centers. We concluded from the focal mechanisms of the background seismicity and June and September 1999 events, that a complex stress environment exits in the CPGF due to the continual thinning of the crust in the Cerro Prieto basin.